


Open Wounds

by PepperPrints



Category: Fate/stay night (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperPrints/pseuds/PepperPrints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe he's acting foolish because he's defensive, fixating on this issue because it's a lot easier than facing the reality of what he's done tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Wounds

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Открытые раны](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851357) by [WTFFate2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTFFate2017/pseuds/WTFFate2017)



> Turns out I accidentally viewed last month for 31_days instead of the current month! Nonetheless, the prompt is: I absolutely don't want to leave scars in someone's heart and say, "Here, I have made you a work that will linger forever". I want to give strength to the hearts I've been entrusted with, and send them back to reality with tenderness. 
> 
> Sorry for unexplained post-coitus scenarios. Warnings for: mentions of scars/self harm/implications of suicide.

There is a scar above Kirei Kotomine's heart.

It's one of many in a dark collection that Shirou does not want to think about too hard, but this one catches his notice. While he can guess at the dark origins of the others, this one is foreign and odd. It's a messy mark, the skin pale and stretched like webbing. He reaches out, to lay curious fingers over it, and withdraws quickly again when Kirei's eyes open.

He's awake.

“Er, Kotomine,” blurts Shirou, nervously, his hand retreating away at an almost comical distance – as if the contact scalded him. “Did I wake you?”

A sigh comes as the response, and Kirei touches the heel of his palm against his fluttering eyes. “Are you not tired?” Kirei poses a question of his own, rather than answering Shirou's – which earns a frown, but Shirou replies regardless.

“Ah, no, I couldn't sleep,” he answers, and Kirei makes a low hum of a sound.

“You have a lot of scars,” adds Shirou bluntly, without any prompting, and Kirei peers at him with one tired eye.

“Perhaps if you try to count them all, you will fall asleep,” he replies, rolling over onto his side, and Shirou bristles. It may not be Kirei's intent, but the position only serves to give Shirou a full view of the canvas of scars on Kirei's back:

Lines of a whip. Great patches where flesh must have been peeled away. Burns. Holes which signified some gruesome piercing.

Then the opposite side of that spidery scar above his heart: the matching mark at his back, like something had driven right through him.

“Why would you do that to yourself?” It comes out like an accusation, against his better judgment. The words blurt out before he can think better of it. “It's--”

“Emiya,” Kirei cuts in, his low voice firm and demanding. “Will you not sleep?”

“I'm not really in the mood to, no,” he snaps back, more angry than he should be. Why is he doing this? Maybe he's acting foolish because he's defensive, fixating on this issue because it's a lot easier than facing the reality of what he's done tonight.

“...sorry,” he adds belatedly, after several beats of silence. “I just don't think it's right.”

The sheets rustle with Kirei's movement. The priest doesn't turn around, but he does shift, adjusting his position. “What exactly do you mean by that?” he inquires, and Shirou fidgets where he sits behind him.

“I don't want see anyone hurt,” he replies, at length. “Especially not by their own hands.”

Kirei says nothing and Shirou begins to doubt. With careful slowness, he reaches out to touch his fingertips against a scar. He follows it along Kirei's shoulder-blade: the mark of a whip against his flesh.

“Especially the people I care about.”

That earns a reaction.

Kirei rolls over to face him, and Shirou has to withdraw his hand again so it isn't trapped. Kirei's hair is messy, his bangs having fallen into his face, and it would seem disarming if his eyes weren't so intense.

“Koto--”

Kirei doesn't let him finish. His hand reaches out, broad fingertips laying over Shirou's bare collarbone, and he shivers despite himself.

“Do you think, Shirou Emiya,” Kirei begins suddenly, his voice quiet. “That you have never hurt yourself, simply because you have no scar to show it?”

What?

Before Shirou can give actual voice to the question which rings in his mind, Kirei continues speaking. “There are far worse scars than those written on flesh,” he elaborates, his hand moving in a slow, determined path down Shirou's abdomen. “Injuries that are invisible are the most deadly, as you can never tell when they are healed. Often, one doesn't even realize the wounds are open still – so they go untreated. They fester; they grow infected, and they burn like a disease which eats away at your very core.”

Kirei's touch stops suddenly, his palm laying flat against Shirou's stomach, which is churning unpleasantly as a result of the priest's words.

“My origin,” Kirei reminds, “lies in opening wounds.”

His fingers spread out, stroking Shirou's stomach, and the gesture is more chilling than affectionate.

“Perhaps that is why my instinct was to try to bleed my sin out of my body,” he muses almost loftily. “For what little good it gained me.”

There is a tension in Shirou's throat. He tries to swallow it down, but that just threatens to choke him. He remains still under Kirei's hand, not daring to move, and suddenly all that dark intimidation that he thought had faded from Kirei Kotomine returns in full force.

“Kotomine...” he begins uneasily, and dark eyes meet his own, and Kirei withdraws his hand. He turns away again, his eyes closed and scars exposed.

“Do not attempt to mend what is past your ability, Shirou Emiya,” Kirei advises lowly. “You have no aptitude as a healer.”


End file.
